


Four Ways Teena's Life May Have Turned Out Differently

by memories_child



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memories_child/pseuds/memories_child
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Ways Teena's Life May Have Turned Out Differently</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Ways Teena's Life May Have Turned Out Differently

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: pre-series-S7  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be (much as I wish they were)  
> Authero's Notes: Written for the first Harem comment-fic challenge at LJ

i. Elizabeth Kuipers is a hot name in Massachusetts. Fresh out of Ohio and barely eighteen years old, she turns heads wherever she goes. "Why yes, I'm working on a book," she says when asked. "My first one." She doesn't go into detail on the genre, plot or characters; sidesteps the questions and comments on the weather, the latest parties, the most charming men in town. But anyone who's anyone in Massachusetts knows her name. She's invited to all the parties; turns up fashionably late and unquestionably in style. With her ash blonde hair and sea-green eyes she turns head, no mistake. Her father's friend tries to pair her off, introduces her to different men each night but she treats them all the same. Teddy, Hank, George and Bill: she shakes their hands, smiles that smile, and walks away.

 

ii. Bill works late most nights, crawling home at two, sometimes three in the morning. He tries not to bang the doors as he moves through the house but they bang anyway. Shotguns waking her from a light sleep. Sometimes he crawls into their bed; she feels the mattress dip beneath his weight and a cold draft snakes its way under the blankets. She pulls the eiderdown more tightly around herself and feigns sleep. Other times she finds him on the couch, jacket flung onto the floor, a half drunk glass of scotch clutched in his hand. She wakes him before the children rise, avoids his eyes as he rubs the day-old stubble on his chin. On rare occasions he brings his colleauges home. She cooks dinner, pours tea into china cups, is the perfect wife. These men in their rumpled suits barely glance at her, focus their gaze on Bill and talk about war and communist threats. Only one ever looks at her, thanks her for the meal, places his hand on her arm as he leaves. She averts her eyes and doesn't watch him as he walks away.

 

iii. Samantha is curled in her arms, the weight of the world removed from her eight-year-old shoulders in sleep. She has nightmares most nights, wakes screaming for her brother until Teena enters her room and switches on the light. "He's gone, mom. He's gone," she sobs over and over again as Teena rocks her in her arms and sings half-forgotten lullabies. She and Bill sleep in separate beds these days, any pretence for the sake of the children forgotten. She makes herself small in the too-large bed, sticks resolutely to the left-hand side, her side, and ignores the vast expanse of eiderdown to her right. She keeps Fox's stuffed bear on her bedside table, its face (accusatory) turned away. She wonders, every day, if she made the right decision. And then Samantha calls her name.

 

iv. The cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. Her doctor had sat her down to give her the news, a box of tissues at hand. Teena nodded, asked how long she had left, and called into the pharmacy on the way home. Now, with the sun slanting through the trees, she sits in the easy chair. Boxes of photographs surround her, nearly burying her. The prescription she filled perches on the arm of the chair, boxes full of drugs to help her sleep, ease her pain, make her food go down a bit more easily. She glances at them, from time to time, then returns to the photographs. She sorts them into piles: Fox, Samantha, she and Bill; then years: 1961, 1973, 1992; and then shuffles them together and starts again. The photos are smooth under her fingers, the matt images warm in her hands. She sorts and shuffles, sorts and shuffles as the sun sinks lower in the sky. Finally, she stands, rolls her shoulders, packs the boxes away. The prescription sits on the arm of the chair.


End file.
